You know that sinking feeling. You taste the soup you have been simmering for an hour and your mouth puckers. Too much salt. Way too much. And everybody says to throw in a raw potato.

Forget the potato. It does not work. I tested it twice. The potato absorbs water, not salt. Your soup gets slightly less salty because the potato added volume — same as adding plain water would do. There are better ways.

What actually works

Here are four methods that fix over-salted soup, ranked from fastest to most involved.

Method 1: Add acid

A splash of acid — lemon juice, vinegar, or even a squeeze of lime — does not remove salt, but it distracts your taste buds from the saltiness. Acid brightens the flavor and balances the salt perception. Start with half a teaspoon, stir, taste, and add more if needed.

This works best for tomato-based soups, lentil soups, and anything with vegetables. It works less well for cream soups.

Method 2: Add dairy

Cream, milk, yogurt, or coconut milk all dilute the salt concentration while adding richness. The fat in dairy coats your tongue and softens the salt perception. Stir in a quarter cup at a time until the salt level drops to where you want it.

This is the go-to fix for chowders, bisques, and cream-based soups. It is also the most forgiving — you can add quite a bit of dairy before the soup tastes wrong.

Method 3: Increase the volume

Add more unsalted liquid — water or low-sodium broth — plus whatever solids you have on hand. More vegetables, more beans, more pasta, more rice. This is dilution, pure and simple, but unlike the potato trick it actually works because you are measurably increasing the volume.

If the soup gets too thin after adding liquid, let it simmer uncovered for ten minutes to reduce.

Method 4: Add something sweet or starchy

A pinch of sugar, a drizzle of honey, or a spoonful of tomato paste can all help. Sweetness counterbalances salt in the same way that salted caramel works — the flavors play off each other.

Starchy additions like cooked rice, cooked pasta, or canned chickpeas (rinsed) will absorb some of the salty broth. They also add bulk, which stretches the soup’s salt across more bites.

What I do now

I start with acid. Half the time, a squeeze of lemon fixes it. If not, I go to dairy if the soup allows it. Dilution is my last resort because it changes the soup the most.

And I stopped keeping emergency potatoes in the pantry for this purpose. They are better roasted anyway.